


A Private Affair

by DaScribbla



Series: The Private and Intimate Life of the House [1]
Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sugar Daddy, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Extramarital Affairs, Guilt, Infidelity, Introspection, Jealousy, Marriage, Multi, Pregnancy, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 20:50:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11813937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaScribbla/pseuds/DaScribbla
Summary: Peter knows he doesn't have a claim on Tony - not since the engagement - but when he's invited to the beach for a summer-long getaway, he finds it's a little too easy to pretend.





	A Private Affair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RedFlagsAndDiamonds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedFlagsAndDiamonds/gifts).



> Careful, kids: this is what happens when you listen to Lana Del Rey for over two hours after rewatching Casino Royale.

 

* * *

 

> _"I wanted it to leave a mark:_
> 
> _that’s how I knew I loved you._
> 
> _Because I wanted to be burned, stamped,_
> 
> _to have something in the end—“_
> 
> Louise Gluck, “The Encounter”

* * *

Summer that year was long, hot, and indulgent, stretching like a cat through the months after school let out, and as Peter sat on the white leather couch in the living room—the warm air of the night drifting through the open French doors that led onto the pool deck—he felt as though he had fallen asleep in a hot tub and just been thrown into an ice bath.

“Honey, I assure you that it’s all the same to me,” Tony was saying, pacing back and forth just outside. “Absolutely. As long as you’re there at the end of the aisle with me, I couldn’t care less who caters.”

Another minute of conversation. Peter glanced at the glass coffee table beside the couch and the sweating glass of scotch that Tony had left behind when his phone rang. Peter dipped a cautious finger in it and tried the flavor. Meh. Nothing to write home about. 

He was just about to try a more ambitious taste when Tony strode back in, tossing his phone onto the chair on the other side of the coffee table.

“That her?” Peter asked, quickly retracting his hand. Tony barely noticed, taking a distracted sip as he sat back down, nodding.

“Catering,” he said. “You’d think tying the knot would be easier, honestly.”

Peter didn’t respond, looking uncomfortably at the floor. “Why don’t you turn it off?”

Tony frowned. ‘Oh, you mean the phone?” he said. “Why? You got something that’ll make it worth my while?”

Peter didn’t respond verbally, just stood up, undid the strings of his silk bathrobe—Tony’s silk bathrobe—and sat down in his lap. With one hand, he carefully removed the scotch from his grasp and set it back on the coffee table as Tony’s hands slid up his bare thighs to his hips. 

“Don’t I always?” Peter said.

 

Tony loved him as though he were unwrapping candy, intent on savoring every last sugary drop of him. The pace was immaterial. It had been desperate and rough the first time, and then, just last night, as drawn-out as the summer had been. 

It was a thoroughly odd arrangement they had. On some level, Peter knew that there were words for this sort of thing and that he fit the definition as snugly as he had the bespoke suit Stark had bought him a month before, but somehow labeling the _thing_ they had made it feel even more sordid than it already was. 

He’d grown used to the gifts, the connections, even (and his heart still skipped a beat on this one), the sleek, undeniably sexy bright blue Camaro that had been waiting for him the morning of his sixteenth birthday. In the same way, he’d grown used to the burn of Stark’s stubble on his neck and his thighs, the ache in his muscles after a good, steady fuck, and, of course, the love bites that appeared everywhere with only the vaguest memory on his part how they got there. If Tony — they’d insisted on first names a while ago, around the time they’d had dinner in private for the first time, and Peter had lost his patience, left his own chair, and shoved dishes and glasses out of the way to sit on the table and unbutton his shirt — well. 

If Tony bought him things he wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford, and if Peter was willing to make up the difference, as it were, really… 

Words were just words, weren’t they?

It didn’t escape Peter’s understanding that something was terribly wrong with what they had (aside from the obvious, what did you call a relationship where one benefitted physically and the other financially? And how about one where they pretended to ignore each other until the door closed, and then woe be unto anyone and anything that attempted to pry them off each other?). He knew that this was BAD, all capital letters, but there was something Epicurean about his feelings for Tony; if it made him feel good, he wouldn’t question it.

Besides, holding down a paid internship was pretty nice, as was the knowledge that as far as MIT was concerned, all he’d really have to do was show up. 

Besides, he’d been the one to make a move toward the physical aspect of their relationship, not Tony, so it wasn’t _too_ wrong, right? Okay, maybe he was trying a little too hard to justify their behavior there.

Besides, it was easy to adapt to a certain kind of lifestyle: be that floating on his back in the jade-green pool at the center of Tony’s villa on the shoreline, the sun on his face; or waking up in Tony’s California king bed with one arm thrown over him as Tony tugged him closer in sleep. Whatever callous disinterest in him Tony feigned whilst in the public sphere, it was an incredibly well-orchestrated sham. Peter had the bite marks to prove it. When Tony liked something, he marked it up so people knew he had dominion.

Peter was all right with that. Honestly, he encouraged it. There was something furtively erotic about waking up covered in bruises that would fade by the afternoon.

One evening back in New York, he’d taken him to a casino—no paparazzi permitted—and Peter had discovered the unexpected power of standing behind Tony at the roulette table, water glass in hand, and watching the others at the table watch him, the pretty boy in the suit with the fresh bite mark on his throat that his collar couldn’t hide. 

Later that night, he’d discovered the innate discretion of the wealthy. Tony, after he’d won the game, had gone as far as to hook an arm around his waist and nuzzle into his neck as he pulled him into his lap, and those in the near vicinity had turned a blind eye. Not one person mentioned Peter’s ambiguous age (it was a relief for both of them, the way a suit could make him look older). Not one person mentioned the missus. 

 

The invitation to the villa had come out of nowhere one evening in the haze of an afterglow, and at first, Peter hadn’t been sure he was serious. It was hard to tell sometimes, with him.

“Come to the beach with me,” he’d said.

“Huh?”

Peter rolled onto his stomach and frowned at him. They were laying in the bed in the hotel room, the duvet kicked down around their ankles, the sheets body-warm.

“I got a beach house down around the Keys. You’d love it. Nice, streamlined, secluded.”

“Oh.” He gnawed on his lower lip. “Can I ask what brought this on?”

“Sudden flight of fancy.” He swiped a fingertip down the bridge of Peter’s nose. “What, you can’t go?”

“What would I tell May?”

“What’d you tell her tonight?”

He shrugged. “Working late again.” He smiled. “I’ll think about it.”

 

He didn’t really remember the excuse he’d made to May — some work thing, nothing for it, I know, I know — but he did remember boarding the yacht with Tony and getting kissed against the side of the cabin out on the deck.

 

Some days it took work to make Tony notice him, and he would stretch out meaningfully on one of the lounge chairs by the pool and wait for him to take the hint. 

“Hey,” he called to him as he passed by, holding out the sunscreen bottle. “Do my back?”

“You’re wearing a shirt,” Tony observed.

“I know,” Peter said with a grin. 

 

Most of the buttons on Peter’s shirt landed on the cement pool deck and were easily retrieved, but one went missing until Tony pointed it out several days later floating near the center of the pool, a small speck of red in the six-foot section.

 

The summer was long, and everything was a blur of water and sunlight. When Peter recalled it, there were few details and a lot of feelings. Torpor. Easy enough sex, but easier smiles. There was, of course, the lazy afternoons in the sunlight, barely dressed; long lengths swam in the pool. There was the time Tony had slipped into the glass shower after him and blown him right there while Peter washed his hair. There was the time they’d gotten too wrapped up in each other and burned breakfast. There was the time Peter had complained of too many knots in his shoulders, and Tony had hired an actual masseuse from the area to work on him right there in the living room: Peter had lain there on his stomach while tanned and pierced Savanna turned him into butter with a few rolls of her palms; in the polished glass of the door that led onto the pool deck, he’d spotted Tony leaning against the entrance of the living room, a beer in hand and his eyes fixed on Peter’s oiled body. He must have fallen asleep at some point, because when he woke, Savanna had left, and Tony was nosing down his back, tonguing at his spine.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” he muttered, and Peter hummed, letting Tony hoist him up onto his hands and knees and trusting him enough to do whatever he wanted until he came hard into Tony’s palm, carpet burn on the heels of his hands and his knees. And then Tony had scooped him up like a doll and carried him to bed for another round, this time in cool linen sheets.

There had been the dip in the pool that evening to take off the oil and sweat, the lights glowing gold against the gentle green of the water. He’d looked over his shoulder to see Tony standing leaning against the railing to watch him, something unreadable and almost bereft in his expression. 

 

It seemed to Peter that time stopped when they were there. Everything shrank down to the two of them: Peter in swim trunks, leaning against the bar in the kitchen; Tony mixing a cocktail.

“Can I get in on that?” he asked.

“No, you cannot.”

“What, break one rule, can’t break ‘em all?” He caught Tony’s eye. “Kidding, I’m kidding.”

“You’d better be.”

Peter grinned, dashed a finger through the cocktail, and brought it up to his lips to suck all the alcohol off. Tony just rolled his eyes.

“And how was that?” he asked.

Peter rolled his tongue around his mouth thoughtfully. “Not bad. Sort of strawberry?”

“That’s the schnapps, yeah.” Tony took a sip, testing out the flavor. “Hey, you’re right, that isn’t bad.”

“Think I could have a second go?”

Tony leaned over the bar, tilting Peter’s chin up for a quick kiss. 

“Verdict?” 

“You know,” Peter said, grinning as he licked his lips, “I think I actually liked that better?”

 

In the evenings — silken, royal blue nights; white stone; jade water in the pool; the distant roar of the ocean — they sat together on the deck overlooking the beach and listened to the waves crash in and out, the gulls crying overhead, spotted the boats out on the water in the far distance. 

Once, Peter pulled him out onto the beach itself, shedding clothes as he went, and backed out into the waves, beckoning to Tony to join him and laughing when he did, splashing him, catching him by a wrist to pull him closer, kissing until a breaker knocked them apart.

Sex later in the shower with Tony’s fingers slick with massage oil and Peter’s head rubbing the clouds off the glass door. Long licks of his tongue against his throat took off layers of salt. 

And waking up hours later in bed to find Tony holding him, that now familiar look in his eyes. Some time ago, he’d understood that when that expression appeared, Tony was feeling ashamed, and the only thing Peter could do for him was to pretend he didn’t see it. 

 

Every so often, they’d both be woken by Tony’s phone ringing, and Peter would groan and roll over while Tony rose to answer.

“— I know. I’ll be coming back in a week or two. I just had to get out of there, you know? I will. Love you. ‘Bye.”

Tony would settle back against him afterward, and Peter would ask him what that had been about. And Tony murmured something about how Pepper was upset because Vera Wang was no longer speaking to her now that she’d gotten Zac Posen to design the dress instead.

“What’s going to happen to us?” Peter murmured. “After you get married?”

But Tony would never reply.

 

Sometimes, he suspected that Tony preferred him less emotionally intuitive. It was easier to play the big-eyed, insatiable sugar baby than it was to, you know, _talk_ about things. If that was the Peter he wanted, that was the Peter he could have.

He felt the wrongness as much as Peter did, he knew, even if it didn’t always seem that way — and it was hard to catch him at it between the kisses, the wild ideas. It was hard to see regret when he bought him expensive suits, silk ties and, once, a pair of Louboutin heels. It was hard to see regret when he loved him so _thoroughly,_ when he let Peter spend his days however he liked, when he introduced him to Vichy showers and the unexpected pleasure that a few judiciously placed streams of water could afford… 

Sometimes it was easier to see Tony as nothing but a boyfriend. To brush aside the problems of the age difference, the infidelity, the lying.

 

The summer was long but not eternal. The calls were growing more frequent, and when he heard Pepper’s voice, she sounded more disillusioned. Tired. Peter listened to Tony murmur into the phone, saying things like, _in a few weeks, I love you, don’t worry, can’t wait to see you,_ and would be reminded with a sick little swoop in his stomach that he had no real claim, that Tony had belonged to someone else long before he’d ever appeared in his life, and that long after Peter had passed out of it again, he would still have someone. Someone much better suited: older, more sophisticated. Nobody wanted a rhinestone when they could get Cartier.

 

What a pair they made – the one who liked to be used, the other who liked to be told what to do. Most nights found them somewhere in the villa, up against a wall or in the bed or on the dining table, fucking as though their lives depended on it. Sex was an easy path to expression that saved them the embarrassment of words. Words were messy, too intimate, too easily fumbled. A bite to the throat, a raking of nails… there was no ambiguity there. 

They moved the bed halfway across the room one evening: Tony gripping his hips, and Peter clenching the headboard over Tony’s head. Little whimpers, little growls that reached a desperate pace and then stopped abruptly, as though they had tripped over themselves. 

The sheets were cool against his skin when Peter fell bonelessly back onto the bed, chest heaving like an athlete’s. Tony’s mouth against his, lazy, not quite making meeting target. Tongue. 

“Your hair’s growing,” he murmured lethargically, his fingers twisting in his curls. Peter hummed and propped himself up on one arm. 

“Do it again?” he said.

“I just fucked your brains out, and you want another round already?”

“Yeah.” He grinned crookedly. “I’m sixteen and I’m never satisfied.”

Tony’s hand was heavy on the back of his neck. “Trust me, much as I’d like to, you’re not getting me up again tonight,” he said.

Another grin. “Nobody said _you_ had to get up.” He crawled up to him until he was half on top of him, hands making deep valleys in the pillows on either side of Tony’s head. “Get me off, daddy,” he whispered.

And Tony tugged his head down by a handful of his hair and kissed him long and slow and filthy.

 

The calls persisted, even up to the day they left. Peter packed up his clothes and listened to the snatches of conversation he could pick up from the bathroom, where Tony was pacing back and forth, phone pressed to his ear. It was a long conversation, and he heard things about guest lists, seating arrangements, letting out dresses, something about a nursery.

And a little bit more of Peter’s heart cracked.

 

Summer ended with sex up against the huge window in the bedroom, rain drizzling against the glass outside, the sea gray and flat. Arms around necks, around waists, Peter’s lower lip trapped between Tony’s teeth. The room was bare; all their luggage had been moved out to the front of the villa. The only sign it had been occupied was the clothes strewn across the bed. 

He closed his eyes, Tony moved his lips to his forehead, and Peter buried his head in his neck, breathed him in.

 

“You know what’s happening here, right?” Tony said hours later in the yacht.

Peter nodded and stayed silent.

“I can still cover the money stuff,” he continued. “You don’t need to reciprocate.”

Peter glanced at him from where he stood at the windows, watching the villa recede into the distance. 

“It’s not the money I care about,” he said simply.

Tony’s sad eyes, looking at him like he'd never be tired of it. “I know, babe.”

And they left it at that. 

 

Two days before school started again, he read online about Tony Stark’s long-anticipated marriage to Virginia Potts, CEO. The photographs looked nice. Tony in white tie. Pepper in silk, no veil. The wedding had been an elaborate albeit private affair, the accounts read, the service and reception limited to friends and family. Jealousy stung like hot shower water on a sunburn. 

 

But all that was made up for two weeks later during work hours when they lost control as Tony threw him onto his desk, scattering papers everywhere and nearly knocking his computer onto the floor, and Peter couldn’t help his small smile of triumph as Tony hastily undid his fly, and the world rocked back onto its axis once again.

**Author's Note:**

> There's a playlist for this - https://open.spotify.com/user/joannscribbles/playlist/4NtCTI6nbMxsxNvoWKvGV0

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Internal Bleeding](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13262409) by [RedFlagsAndDiamonds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedFlagsAndDiamonds/pseuds/RedFlagsAndDiamonds)
  * [Be With Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13356027) by [RedFlagsAndDiamonds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedFlagsAndDiamonds/pseuds/RedFlagsAndDiamonds)




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